Before it could escalate any further, two of the members of the police made their way over and led the father away, nodding to Twilight as they went. The local force knew her rather well. She had helped them a few times when people had been seen wandering into the forest and had not returned within the usual time frame. She had no clue what they thought of her, or whether they had a case file running on her or what, but as she made her way over to the main group, her usual contact, Detective Julia Ley, came over.
“Aella.” Ley seemed relieved to see her, “You’ve heard already?”
“My boss phoned, I was about to do some revision for my exams but I figured this was more important.” Twilight shrugged, “Any idea what really happened? Because I promise, I had nothing to do with this.”
“We know.” Of course they did. Twilight was half convinced that they had her house bugged. Not that they would get much from the bugs except her talking to herself, but it would explain how they always seemed to know what she had been up to. It was an uncomfortable thing to think about, that even during her ‘off’ periods she had someone watching her every move. However she had already decided that she would rather put up with the invasion of privacy than have them arrest her every time someone made a claim against her or someone went missing.
“So?” Twilight pushed, trying not to be frustrated by the entire mess.
“The kid got into a row with his parents and apparently left via the bedroom window when everyone was asleep.” Ley replied with a huff, “Except no one saw him leave and no one saw which way he went.”
“I can take a group through the woods.” Twilight offered, thinking, “But Mikey could have gone in completely the opposite direction.”
“We have people looking that way too. This is literally the furthest we think he could have gone.” Ley replied, her tone short and clipped, “But to be honest we think he’s probably hiding on the site. This a huge waste of everyone’s time, but...” She trailed off and gestured towards where there was a man talking to a camera.
“Vultures.” Twilight grumped causing Julia to nod.
“The boss can deal with them.” The detective replied, “We just need to make a sweep of the area.”
Twilight nodded and took Detective Ley, along with several others through the woods. The area was quiet, more so than usual. Normally when Twilight took a group through the forest, looking for someone, the residents of the forest were around, pulling pranks and causing problems. As they travelled through the heavily wooded area, Twilight did not catch even a glimpse of the non-mortal denizens of the area.
Some of the mortal ones were missing too. A lot of the animals that were normally in the area were quiet. Though Twilight couldn’t be sure if they had not been scared off by the noise that the searchers. It was a possibility and she could be reading the unnatural into a perfectly natural thing, she was just used to a lot more noise and the almost dead silence of the woods, interrupted only by the sounds of the searchers bellowing for Mikey freaked her out.
They were there until long after sunset and it was nigh on midnight before they finally stumbled back to the village with no more clues than they had had when they had left that morning. Twilight was exhausted and fumbled the keys, dropping them as she tried to unlock her bike from the railing.
“Oh shi...” Twilight grabbed for them and missed. Luckily Detective Ley had followed her and prevented them from tumbling through the sewer grate. “Thank you.” The student grinned at her gratefully.
“Are you alright to drive?” Ley asked, looking her over and seeming concerned. “We could give you a lift.”
“Need my bike for tomorrow, got a study session in Plymouth.” Twilight shrugged, “Besides I don’t fancy walking home at this time of night, no matter how peaceful it is around here normally.”
“We’ll give you a lift.” The detective reassured her, herding her away from the vehicle and towards the car. Twlight followed, too tired to argue. She could not understand how the detective could have so much energy left when they had rambled for miles and scrambled up hills and tumbled down slopes and been out for hours.
She sat in the back and tried not to feel awkward when the door slammed shut behind her, locking her in the back of the motor, while Detective Ley and another officer slipped into the front seats on the other side of the rather secure looking grate.
“Aella,” Ley started, looking over her shoulder at her as her partner drove them back to Seaview Cottage, “Twilight, while we’re grateful for your help with this and many other cases, I need to talk to you about something.”
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